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5 Answers

Triple boot Windows 7,XP, Fedora

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Disk Partition, Fedora

Hi,

I am trying to triple boot Windows 7, XP and Fedora 15.  I have Windows 7 and Xp working great but am having issues with Fedora.  I tried installing grub to the first sector of the boot partition but when I use easyBCD after to set up Fedora and then select it during booting, I just get a blinking cursor and nothing else.  What am I doing wrong? I have 2 drives, windows 7 is on its own and xp and fedora should be on the same one.

Thanks!

 

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5 Answers



  1. Stephen on Jul 07, 2011

    The reason why hdd 1 had windows 7 was because it is a ssd and I wanted the performance increase there. I have XP and a data partition on the other drive. I understand that to make that work I need to have XP installed first. Can I just use a partition manager to move the XP partition to the front of the drive while leaving a space between that and the data partition for the fedora to rest? (Or should the data partition be second?) How is moving it around before installing fedora different from just doing a clean install? I ask because it is not such a big deal deleting XP, but I am not sure how I would recreate the data partition and I’d prefer not to delete it if possible.

    I noticed that you recommended installing GRUB to the MBR. I was looking at a different guide on this site that talks about installing it to the first sector of the boot partition.
    http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2011/06/27/how-to-dual-boot-fedora-15-and-windows-7/
    What is the difference in these two approaches in practice?

    Thanks again!

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    • finid on Jul 07, 2011

      The recommendation to install GRUB in the MBR is specific to your case. With another version of Windows on the first disk, I though it would be better to not hand both disks to the Windows boot manager.

      Otherwise, yes, when dual-booting with Windows, taking the pros and cons into consideration, GRUB is better of in the boot partition.

      I have never had to more partitions around, so I’m not in a position to comment on that. If you go that route and are successful, be sure to post how here.

      The data partition can be before or after Fedora, and if you do not want to recreate it, try deleting and reinstalling XP and Fedora, making sure that the data partition is not reformatted.

      The better route is to do a clean install. Just back up the data partition’s contents.

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  2. Stephen on Jul 06, 2011

    Thanks for the fast response. When I look at the drive under windows, I see a 500 mb healthy partition and a 185 gb partition followed by a windows and fat partition. I am a little surprised that I don’t see 3 non windows partitions since I have a /,home and swap. The linux ones appear first on the drive. In BCD I used the GRUB legacy, and my 500 mb partition as the device. I didn’t check the “use EasyBCD’s GRUB loader” and I do get a little farther when I do. Now It starts to go through loading screens but halts here:
    booting fedora
    root (hd0,2)
    error 22: no such partition
    press any key

    What should I try next?

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    • finid on Jul 06, 2011

      You have to be exactly sure how the second drive is partitioned. Where is XP with regards to Fedora? That you have a windows and fat partitions after the Fedora partitions tells me that the partitioning was not done right. Fedora should be installed last, not before XP.

      Note that if you used Fedora’s default partitioning scheme, which is based on LVM, windows will not see the 3 logical volumes (/, Swap, /home), but will only see the boot partition and the Physical Volume.

      That is why you only see a 500 MB partition (that is the boot partition), and a 185 GB partition (that is the Physical Volume).

      If I were in your position, here is how I will partition both hard drives:

      HDD 1: Install both Windows 7 and XP on this drive. Doing this limits the most common source of post-installation problems to one disk, rather than spreading them across drives.

      HDD 2: Install Fedora on this drive, with GRUB in the MBR of the disk. Note that GRUB has to be in the MBR of the Fedora drive. Next, use EasyBCD to add an entry for Fedora in the first drive’s boot menu.

      If you must have XP and Fedora on the second drive, then install XP first, followed by Fedora, with GRUB in the MBR of the second drive. Use EasyBCD as above.

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  3. finid on Jul 06, 2011

    What is the size of the second disk, and how “far out” is the boot partition from the beginning of the disk? That could be one source of your problem.

    Another is you may have chosen the wrong version of GRUB in EasyBCD. Remember that Fedora uses GRUB Legacy. If you chose that, did you check the “GRUB is not installed in the MBR” option. This two items are the most common source of the problem you described.

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